1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a novel polymer composition useful in various functional materials, a polymer-containing composition, an ink composition, an ink-applying process, and an ink-applying apparatus. Particularly preferably, it relates to an ink composition and a toner composition using the polymer compound together with a solvent or dispersing medium, and a color material, and an ink-applying process and an ink-applying apparatus using the composition.
2. Description of the Related Art
As aqueous dispersion materials containing functional substances, pesticides such as herbicides and insecticides, medicaments such as anticancer agents, antiallergic agents and antiinflammatory agents, and color materials such as ink and toner having a colorant are hitherto well known as functional materials. Recently, digital printing technologies have advanced very rapidly. The digital printing technologies include so-called electrophotographic technology and ink-jet technology as representative examples and increasingly show their presence as image-forming technologies in offices, homes, and the like.
Among them, ink-jet technology has characteristics of compact size and low electric power consumption as a direct recording process. Moreover, a higher quality image has been rapidly developed by miniaturization of nozzles and the like. One example of ink-jet technology is a process of evaporating and foaming ink supplied from an ink tank by heating the ink with a heater in a nozzle to inject the ink, whereby an image is formed. Another example is a process of injecting ink from a nozzle by vibrating a piezoelectric element.
Since an aqueous dye solution is used as the ink to be used in these processes, bluffing may sometimes occur at the time when colors are overlapped and a phenomenon called feathering may appear in the fiber direction of paper at recorded portions on a recording medium. In order to remedy these problems, use of pigment-dispersed ink has been investigated (U.S. Pat. No. 5,085,698). However, further improvement is still desired.